Daily Photograph- July 4, 2015: Silvereye at Dusk

Here is today's photograph - yes, another bird, and a hard one to catch a clear photograph of. This is a silvereye feeding on berries, taken at the end of the day.

Daily Photograph, April 24, 2015 - Spider in the Shower Bay

So, it's cold and wet and the spiders sometimes come inside for somewhere warm and dry, but the shower bay? What is that?

Possibly a wolf spider - not deadly or agressive

So you have an idea of size.

Photography: People and Action - Lessons Learned on the First Attempt (Part 3)

With thanks to the Ancient Arts Fellowship of Canberra for both letting me train with them, and then take photographs.

There was one final important thing to note about taking photographs in public places:

Public grounds have other people… and cars… and things, which will show up in your background.

Two background items  - rubbish bin and the woman on the right

Note the car...

And then there's the toilet block...

...another cars, some Coppers Log fencing *and* the road signs.

It is, however, possible to blur the background in shots taken of individuals.

"...and then I just came in low and..."

The AAF fighters work very hard!

Sometimes it is possible to avoid unwanted background features:

... or to crop unwanted material out of shots to achieve a more ‘natural’-looking background.

Cropped - no car, but we lost a fighter

Uncropped with car in background

And sometimes you can’t:

The woman is gone from the right, but I still have a garbage bin dead centre

The close-up lens will do both close-ups and group shots, while the short lens just can’t get close enough.

Close-up of the warrior-in-red

Group shot including warrior in red

As close-up as the short lens can get

Group shot with short lens

And, finally, be aware of the good influences that can happen with people in the background. These shots are more interesting because of the female fighter in the background.

Photography: People and Action - Lessons Learned on the First Attempt (Part 1)

For a very long time, now, I’ve been taking photographs. Mostly, I take shots of birds, beetles, spiders and sunsets, but I recently took up a new hobby—learning the art of ancient swordsmanship with the Ancient Arts Fellowship (AAF) in Canberra. Because I’m a recruit, I can’t join in with the melees until I’ve learnt how to swing my sword safely, so when recruit training is over I pick up my camera.

The first of these shots were a complete learning curve. I had never used my camera to take pictures of more than my small daughter tearing around the yard or ‘helping’ in the garden.

And I had certainly never pointed it at strangers.

Three weeks ago, I did both. With the permission of the AAF fighters, I photographed some of the training session. Most of the time, I focussed on the melee combat, but occasionally I took a few closer shots. If you’d asked me beforehand if I’d be taking individuals, I’d have said ‘no’, so this is something I’ll have to remember for future events.

Here is some of what I learned:

My short lens doesn’t have a filter on the glare, and so does not produce shots that are of the same quality as those I take with the close-up lens. It is, however, better for larger group shots.

short lens - no filter

close-up lens - filter

short lens - no filter

close-up lens - filter

short lens - no filter

close-up lens - filter

short lens - no filter

close-up lens - filter

short lens - no filter

close-up lens - filter

short lens - no filter

close-up lens - filter

Photography, Etiquette, Art and People

The first rule of taking pictures of people is to ask the group you’re photographing if it’s okay to take their pictures. Anyone says, no, and then you have to make sure you don’t take shots of anything with them in it, or you don’t take shots of the activity they’re involved in. Some people just hate being photographed.

Second thing: if you want to submit your photographs to stock photo sites such as Dreamstime of iStock or whoever, you’re going to need a model release from every recognisable person in, or likely to be in the photographs you take. This means that if, like me, you’re not sure if you’ll be mixing the odd opportunistic ‘face’ or ‘character’ shot in with your group shots, you should get the folk to sign up early. It also means you should probably get a model release for each person prior to the activity as you never know if you will want to use the shot a few years down the track—when that person might no longer be found.

The last thing is to be generous. If you take photos at a club, provide the club with copies they can use free of charge. If you take photographs of a person, provide the person with copies of the shots that include them. After all, without them generously allowing you to take pictures, the pictures wouldn’t exist.

If you’re taking pictures of art or crafts, be sure you get the name of the artist—it’s also nice to be able to put their picture beside the picture of their artwork.

Finally, some of us take photographs as reference material. The important thing to remember with this is that you still need a model release to upload art work based on those ‘modelling’ in your photograph to stock photo sites. Even if you have no immediate intention of doing commercial work, it’s best to have the model release form recorded, in case you change your mind later.

People are awesome - most of the time - and it's nice to treat them well.

Where I'm up to - Taking Stock

So, the last year got a bit busy and then ended... poorly. Not much arting got done. Except for a couple of covers, and I have yet to post on the how-tos of those. So, to start the new year, I took stock of where I'd been with my drawing and my picture-taking and so forth, and this year I vowed I would do better.

So, I took stock by looking back over what I had done last year, and identifying areas that needed improvement, and then I decided on a couple of projects.

• Refamiliarise with materials: I'm so out of touch with the whole painting and drawing thing that I've lost touch with what all that painting and drawing stuff can do. So, I found a book to help me along the way. Now, just doing prescribed activities probably isn't going to be enough, just as doing targeted writing activities wouldn't be enough to improve my writing. I also need to work on something that I really want to work on. Problem was, I didn't know what that was, so I fell back to a familiar theme and something that interests me at the moment.

• Dragons: Work on my dragons. Just keep drawing line drawings until I felt confident enough to move into other materials, such as coloured pencil, pastels (oil and chalk), and maybe... just maybe, watercolours or gouache. Maybe by the end of the year, I'll be seeing an improvement. In the meantime, here is last night's dragon sketch - unedited.

• Beetles: I had a few photographs that inspired this one, and I'd been pursuing these big 'Christmas' beetles for weeks until I'd worked out which trees I could find them on. And then I took photographs, and now I'm ready to draw. Not exactly sure what genre or style or whatever, but I'll figure it out.

• Spiders: They're an on-going fascination, but the beetles take precedence. 

• Problem Areas: highlighted by this picture. As you can see, I need to work on a lot of things: perspective, colour, plant shape and form, lizard anatomy, weapons and proportion. I'll start small and work bigger. Again, we'll see where it takes me.

First steps will just be to play within the themes above, and to start to enjoy drawing and the process of making pictures again - it has been a long time, since I did this, and I've missed it, but been too busy to get back to it. I figure it will take me a year before I can start thinking bigger projects. Baby steps, but it's time to get back into it.

First Night Shots of a Spider - January 2015

I won't go into the stupidity of the last four months, but you have my apologies for the break. Even with an internet deficiency looming, I'll try and get back into the swing of things with the following pics of a spider weaving its evening web.

This is the first time I've ever shot at the darker end of dusk - and managed to get results. I tried a couple of things.

I'm not set up to shoot insects or spiders or other little things. I don't have a macro. What I have is a zoom lens and a little Canon DS. I'm still learning.

And, last night, I learnt a little bit more. I saw this little beauty weaving her evening web while I was out watering the garden. From what I can see on Alan Henderson's photograph on the 'Minibeasts Wildlife' site, this is a garden orb weaver (possibly an Eriophora biapicata) - and she stopped  me in my tracks and made me completely forget I needed to close the windows against the sprinkler I'd just set.

For those interested in the technical side, these shots were taken using a Canon DS126151 and a Canon EF75-300mm Zoom Lens. Here is a chronology of shots and what I learned along the way.

First shot was a massive failure, because I tried the sports setting and the light was too low.

Like I said - massive fail.

Next, I tried using the flash and the close-up setting. My first shot was blurred because time and spiders busy weaving their webs wait for no man, woman, or camera. This is my second shot.

And this was my third shot.

 They're okay, but I didn't like the way the spider looked so shiny in each shot, or the way the light reflected off its exo-skeleton. Take a look at the next shot and you can see reflections on both the forelegs and fangs. I get the impression she wasn't too happy with the flash or camera, but she kept right on weaving.

I remembered reading somewhere that you can diffuse the flash using tissue paper. Being a little short of tissue paper and time, I grabbed a tissue and gave it a go. The first shot held some promise for getting rid of the reflections.

It was difficult to keep the tissue in place, focus and keep track of a rapidly moving spider in rapidly failing light, but I kept trying and eventually took these, much clearer shots.

I'll try for more night spider shots over the coming weeks, and we'll see how they come out. Wish me luck - these little suckers are quite hard to find.

You can find out more about garden orb weavers at the following sites:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_garden_orb_weaver_spider
• http://australianmuseum.net.au/Garden-Orb-Weaving-Spiders
• http://www.spiders.com.au/garden-orb-weaving-spider.html
• http://www.mdavid.com.au/spiders/orbweavers.shtml
• http://www.findaspider.org.au/find/spiders/105.htm
• http://museumvictoria.com.au/spiders/detail.aspx?pid=5&pic=1
• http://www.spiderzrule.com/orbweaver.htm
• http://www.ozanimals.com/Spider/Garden-Orb-Weaver-Spider/Eriophora/transmarina.html

CROSS-POST: The Australian Galah (Eolophus roseicapillus)

Cross-posted from my writer's blog, these are shots taken in April, our mid-autumn. The leaves hadn't started to turn. Now that it's Spring, they're just starting to shoot again, from bare branches.

Cross-Post:

In addition to the sulphur-crested cockatoos, we had a flock of galahs come to enjoy the fruit on the backyard trees. It makes a change from seeing them grazing on grass seeds.

Of course, not everyone had the hang of landing.

Those trees can be tricky to perch on, don't ya know?

Even when you manage to get set down, there's still the delicate balancing act.

Before the serious business of feeding and grooming can be undertaken.

CROSS-POST: Soggy Magpies (Cracticus tibicen)

From my writer's blog:

I know I've written about magpies before, but I couldn't resist taking a few shots of some very wobegone-looking birds who came to visit on a very wet Saturday morning in August, this year.

They looked much happier once the rain had stopped.


For more information on Magpies, check out:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4858bWD-DPU
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_magpie
• http://www.birdsinbackyards.net/species/Cracticus-tibicen
• http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/animals/TheAustralianMagpie.htm
• http://www.climatewatch.org.au/species/birds/australian-magpie